30 July 2009

Assiette, Surry Hills... again!

I confess that I have most definitely overindulged in the delicious food served at Assiette.

Menu for Friday 10th July

A mere 2 weeks after my first visit to Assiette, I went there again for another $30 lunch - this time with family. Since I forgot to take a picture of the freshly baked sourdough last time, I made sure that I photographed it this time =)

Complimentary sourdough

Again Sir D and I did a plate swap for each course except for the dessert because we both could not resist getting the Strawberry Eton Mess! But first onto the entrees - the sweetcorn veloute was deliciously creamy with pieces of crab scattered throughout the soup. Even though Sir D saved me a bit of the soup (he doesn't like risotto so he had most of the veloute to himself), I loved it so much that wish that I could have a neverending pot of the stuff!

Sweetcorn veloute with spanner crab veloute and basil oil

I wanted to try the mushroom risotto mainly because the idea of parmesan ice cream intrigued me. I had heard much about savoury ice creams before, like olive oil and Heston Blumenthal's famous bacon and egg ice cream, but I'd never tried any myself. It tasted very strongly of parmesan but the texture was icy and cold! Quite a strange experience. The risotto again was cooked perfectly and the subtle flavours complimented the bitey parmesan nicely.

Mushroom risotto with parmesan ice cream

One of the choices for the main course was roasted pork belly. This came with a crunchy crackling and a nice layer of fat, however the actual meat was quite tough and chewy which was a bit of a letdown. This didn't stop the whole dish from being consumed, although admittedly I left most of the meat for Sir D./span>

Roasted pork belly with caramelised apple, de Puy lentils and pumpkin puree

The curried skate goujons were battered pieces of fish. I'd never had skate before and it has quite a different flavour from other fish I've tried, with the flesh being a bit brown in colour. The batter was very crunchy whilst retaining the flaky and moist texture of the fish inside. I adored the peas which was served with bacon, leek and a buttery sauce.

Curried skate goujons with petit pois a la Francais

For dessert, our whole table pretty much decided to have the Eton Mess, with only Dad being the black sheep and ordering the spiced carrot cake. I didn't get to try this but judging from the silence as he ate it, I assume it was a hit.

Spiced carrot cake with macadamia praline ice cream

And finally the dessert I'd been waiting to try since I saw that Not Quite Nigella had eaten it at Assiette - the Eton Mess. It was presented beautifully in a martini glass with a scoop of strawberry sorbet and was absolute heaven. There was just the right amount of cream to go with the meringue pieces and there were small pieces of strawberries throughout. The hands down favourite of the meal (Sir D and Charm concur)!

Strawberry Eton Mess

In fact, I was so in love with this dessert that I raved on about it enough that Queen Chu's mum was kind enough to give me some leftover meringue for me to make my own Eton Mess. Which I did. And I enjoyed every bit of it =D (post coming soon!)

Assiette
48 Albion Street
Surry Hills, NSW
Ph: +61 (02) 92127979
Lunch: Friday, 12pm-3pm
Dinner: Tuesday - Saturday, from 6pm


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2 comments:

  1. Isn't the Assiette deal great? And good to see that they mix up the choices every now and then too. A great Eton Mess is a beautiful thing indeed :D

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  2. Hi Lorraine - Yes I was so glad that I got completely different dishes only two weeks after my previous visit =) My own Eton Mess was nowhere near as good as the one at Assiette but it was still oh-so-satisfying to eat!

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